Giles, Giles & Fripp - The Brondesbury Tapes (2025 Reissue)

Giles, Giles & Fripp’s 1968 demo home recordings, newly remastered by David Singleton. A must-have collection for King Crimson fans, with some early indication of the band’s sound / repertoire. The title for the LP and the CD for "Brondesbury" are slightly different as the LP picks 13 of the best quality audio from the Brondesbury Tapes whilst the CD includes all the Brondesbury Tapes content. Moving into 93a Brondesbury Road in 1968, Peter Giles, Michael Giles and Robert Fripp’s North London flat soon became a centre of creative activity for the trio. Feeling energised after the frustrations they’d experienced while recording “The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles & Fripp” at Decca, they soon established their living space into a home studio (consisting of one Revox reel-to-reel tape machine) which was frequently visited by ex-Fairport Convention vocalist Judy Dyble, a then unknown Ian McDonald and, later in 1969, by Greg Lake. The musical output from that period is often mentioned as providing King Crimson fans with a glimpse into the early incarnation of the band’s sound and composition. The popular Crimson ballad ‘I Talk To The Wind’ appears here in two early versions with one featuring Peter Giles on vocals and the other with Judy Dyble on vocals. Parts of Fripp’s ‘Suite No.1’ would later be transformed into ‘Prelude: Song Of The Gulls’ and his ‘Why Don’t You Just Drop In’ became, with new lyrics, ‘The Letters’ for 1971’s album “Islands”. The Fripp-composed ‘Passages of Time’ is also of interest, consisting of a driving bolero rhythm and a middle-eight section that would later find its way onto King Crimson’s “In the Wake of Poseidon” as ‘Peace - A Theme’. Although the audio quality is limited in places due to the original source, the 2025 remastering by David Singleton has improved the sound significantly compared to previous issues.

Tracklist

1. Erudite Eyes - Giles Giles & Fripp
   2. I Talk to the Wind (1) - Giles Giles & Fripp
   3. Make It Today - Giles Giles & Fripp
   4. Wonderland - Giles Giles & Fripp
   5. She Is Loaded - Giles Giles & Fripp
2. 6. Scrivens - Giles Giles & Fripp
   7. Why Don t You Just Drop In? - Giles Giles & Fripp
   8. Suite No. 1 - Giles Giles & Fripp
   9. I Talk to the Wind (2) - Giles Giles & Fripp
   10. Under the Sky - Giles Giles & Fripp
   11. Plastic Pennies - Giles Giles & Fripp
   12. Tremolo Study in E Major (Spanish Suite) - Giles Giles & Fripp
   13. Passages of Time - Giles Giles & Fripp